The book, Pop Empires Transnational and Diasporic Flows of India and Korea by S. Heijin Lee, Monika Mehta and Robert Ji-Song Ku discusses the trends in Korean popular culture and Indian popular culture. Korean popular music is referred to as K-pop and the Korean movie industry is referred to as Haiyu. The Indian movie pop culture industry is referred to as Bollywood. In this post, I will discuss Korean popular culture in Pop Empires Part I and in my next blog post, Pop Empires part II I will discuss Bollywood--Indian pop culture.
S. Heijin Lee writes an interesting essay analyzing the rise of South Korean rapper, Park Jae Sang (PSY)'s viral hit song, Gangnam Style. PSY has become a worldwide senssation with this song. Lee writes, "No Korean pop star has penetrated the American market like PSY has" (97).
Lee continues to state that PSY fits the Asian American male stereotype as the geeky comical Asian American male not to be taken seriously as PSY video shows the Korean rapper doing comedic rap dance moves.
In September of 2012, a Mother Jones article explained PSY popularity, "PSY is the Asian man who makes it' because he fits neatly into our (American) pop cultural milieu wherein Asian men are either kungfu fighters, Confucius quoting clairvoyants, or the biggest geeks in high school. The article further situates PSY among popular Aisan male figures as Long Duk Dong and William Hong, the former having entered American consciousness as a foreign exchange student in the 1984 teen comedy Sixteen Candles...This Asian male stereotype also emphasizes the foreignness of Asian males..." (99)
However, when PSY danced with MC Hammer, American audiences accepted PSY as a legitimate rapper and not just as a comedic fool in Gangnam Style. In addition, Dancing with MC Hammer gives PSY a 'cool' factor he would otherwise not have with American audiences.
PSY satirizes the modern consumerism of Gangnam, a wealthy South Korean version of Beverly Hills where many wealthy Korean people live and where many plastic surgeons practice plastic surgery. Many fans of PSY go to these plastic surgeons so they can look just like their favorite Korean pop stars.
PSY comedy is successful because it plays on the expectations of the viewer. In one scene, PSY is lying on the beach as one would expect any rich Gangnam resident would be, but then the camera pans back and you see PSY actually in the sandbox of a children's playground. In another scene, PSY is with a beautiful Korean woman of his dreams and the camera pans back, and you see PSY in a busload of middle-aged women.
PSY is not without his controversies, but you would have to read Pop Empires to get the rest of the story. Suffice it to say, that before reading this book, I had no idea what K-Pop was. This is a great book to introduce students to K-pop and to the values of modern South Korean culture. It is also a great book to have to give students an introduction to the Asian American experience. In my next blog post, I will discuss the second half of this book which is about Bollywood--Indian movie pop culture.
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